North Korea tells Theresa May to ‘mind her own business’ as it issues stark cyber warning

Kim Jong-un’s media mouthpiece, KCNA, delivered the warning after declaring “it doesn’t make sense” to place the blame of the WannaCry hack.

It said: “The US and its followers such as Britain had better mind their own businesses rather than provoking other countries over cyber attack.

“Last year Britain connected a cyber attack with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), in a far fetched way, when the cyber attack crippled hundreds of thousands of computers linked to the system of national public health, making it impossible to give medical aid to more than 19,000 patients.

“At that time some experts alleged that they found signs of North Korea’s involvement, adding that the code used in the cyber attack was much like that in the previous hacking cases that seemed to be done by Pyongyang.

“Notably, a British official sniped at Pyongyang for its involvement in the cyber attack, claiming that the British Government was sure that North Korea was behind the case.

“In this regard, the DPRK, which gives top priority to the life and health of the people, made clear that it doesn’t make sense that the DPRK conducted such cyber attack targeting the health system of Britain. And it officially informed the UK side that its act of unilaterally finding fault with the DPRK without any evidence was a scheme to tarnish the image of the DPRK.”

The North Korean regime then launched a scathing attack on the US for “misleading the public” and linking devastating hacks to Kim Jong-un on “no grounds”.

KCNA continued: “Whenever cyber attacks take place worldwide, the US and other hostile forces mislead the public, linking the cases with the DPRK on no grounds.

“As a matter of fact, the kingdom of cyber crimes is the US and it is also the US that regards the cyber attack as an important tool for its foreign policy.”

Last year Donald Trump’s security advisor, Tom Bossert, claimed that the hermit kingdom was “directly responsible” for the WannaCry hacks following a review of evidence.

He explained: “North Korea has acted especially badly, largely unchecked, for more than a decade, and its malicious behaviour is growing more egregious.

“WannaCry was indiscriminately reckless. As we make the internet safer, we will continue to hold accountable those who harm or threaten us, whether they act alone or on behalf of criminal organisations or hostile nations.”

The statements from Mr Bossert were backed up by UK Security Minister Ben Wallace who said that the UK believed “quite strongly” that the rogue state was responsible.

He stated: “North Korea was the state that we believe was involved in this worldwide attack on our systems.

“We can be as sure as possible – I can’t obviously go into the detailed intelligence but it is widely believed in the community and across a number of countries that North Korea had taken this role.”

An estimated 19,000 NHS appointments were affected by the WannaCry attack that halted more than 300,000 computer terminals around the world.

The devastating hack asked for payments starting from £212 ($300) to grant users access to their hardware.